Ethics

Ethics is the cost that a person will pay to uphold his values. It is the way a person translates his or her beliefs into actions (or abstentions) that
entail a cost. Most people differ in their ethics, rather than in their values.
Ethics is the cost that a person will pay to uphold his values. It is the way a person translates his or her beliefs into actions that entail a cost.
Most people differ in their ethics, rather than in their values. Many businesses abandon the values they have to receive a competitive advantage.

Case Study 1: The Healthcare Industry
The people in an organization who develop its strategy are not usually the same people who develop the organizations values. Even when the
same people undertake both of these tasks, they do not often appreciate the intricate relationship between values and strategy, nor do they have the
expertise to translate values into ethics.

Conflicting Values Priorities
The Vice-President of Human Resources of a large Health Care Organization was energetically imparting the value of caring in the organization.
All of the staff espoused this value, and the Chief Executive supported it. However, the Vice-President of Operations was driving a relentless
strategy of cost reduction to ensure the survival of the organization in an economy recession of the Health Care industrys evolution. Both leaders
are people of impressive intellectual and moral stature, and both drove their campaigns hard. Both initiatives were vital for the organization. Their
two departments enjoyed excellent relations. Yet the value of caring undermined the efficiency strategy. Staff could not align the need to reduce
patient/nurse ratios with the value of caring. They could not relate to the downsizing of certain departments in an organization that claimed to care
not only for its patients, but also for its staff. Not only did the organization fail to achieve its cost-cutting goals, but it was also experiencing
reductions in standards of caring. More serious, however, was employees loss of respect for leaderships integrity. The values initiative lost
credibility, and employees saw the cost focus as the only thing that really counted. Patients were not the only ones who suffered from this
deterioration.

Case Study 2: The Banking Industry

Loyalty vs. Excellence
Throughout its long history, a prominent banking institution entrenched the values of fairness and loyalty among its managers and employees.
When globalization and technology transformed the financial services industry, these values began to inhibit the Banks drive for efficiency and
excellence. The Bank downsized and started to reward peoples performances, rather than their loyalties. Employees felt alienated from the
organizations traditional ethics and began to passively sabotage the companys original objectives.